In a 2009 file photo, a sign installer placed the motto "In God We Trust," above the seal of Buena Park in the city's council chambers.

Irvine has revived its religious invocations before meetings for the first time in 12 years. "I would be disappointed if the city decided to have no invocation or benediction. I think it's irresponsible not to have either," says Senior Chaplain Warren C. Johnson, for the Orange County Fire Authority.

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Religious invocations before Irvine City Council meeting have been revived for the first time since 2000. "I've been invited to their house and I want to be sensitive to that," says Senior Chaplain Warren C. Johnson, for the Orange County Fire Authority.

Irvine has revived its religious invocations before meetings for the first time in 12 years. "I would be disappointed if the city decided to have no invocation or benediction," says Senior Chaplain Warren C. Johnson, for the Orange County Fire Authority. A picture of Lt. Colonels Warren and Tena Johnson, parents of Senior Chaplain Senior Warren C. Johnson, graces their son's Orange home. The couple began serving as pastors in the Salvation Army in the early 1930s through the mid 1970s.

Senior Chaplain Warren C. Johnson, for the Orange County Fire Authority, received the prestigious, "The Order of the Founder" in 2012. Images of the event grace his Orange home.

Irvine has revived its religious invocations before meetings for the first time in 12 years. "It is incumbent to be sensitive to those who are in attendance. I don't want to damage the message of peace and hope," says Senior Chaplain Warren C. Johnson, for the Orange County Fire Authority.

IRVINE – Shortly after Irvine’s City Council and those gathered in the audience pledge allegiance to the American flag, “under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” they’ll hear an invocation from a rotating roster of Irvine-based religious leaders.

But they won’t hear “Jesus” or “Allah” or the name of any other deity or reference to other spiritual specifics, based on a policy the divided council adopted last week.

After 12 years without invocations, the city plans to invite clergy members to deliver the messages at its bimonthly meetings. Attached will be guidelines for what can and cannot be said, precautions following a legal precedent set in the 2002 California appeals case of Rubin v. City of Burbank.

The restrictions and the revival of invocations both were criticized at the council’s Jan. 22 meeting, where it voted 3-2 to approve the policy after a lengthy debate and public comments that called for a separation of church and state.

“I fail to see how government sponsored prayer can be a recognition of freedom of religion,” said Karla Westphal, a president of the Orange County chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and one of four members of the public to comment.

Supporters of the policy, including Mayor Steven Choi and Councilman Jeff Lalloway, cited the existence of invocations delivered before meetings in 23 other Orange County cities, and that the messages offer wisdom and inspiration. Both called them an American tradition.

“I think our society needs to be more tolerant of different views,” said Lalloway, who noted he is Jewish.

Councilwoman Christina Shea had reservations about the restrictions but also voted for the policy

Ron Steiner, who teaches Constitutional law at Chapman University , said invocation challenges have landed in court regularly since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that the messages didn’t violate the First Amendment, which prevents the establishment of a national religion.

The same Rubin who sued Burbank in 2002 sued the city of Lancaster. In that 2011 case, a Los Angeles federal court sided with the city, essentially ruling that if the name of a deity or mention of a religious holiday, slips in to a blessing, it’s not that big a deal, Steiner said.

Laguna Niguel, for one, adjusted its policy that same year, removing restrictions that the name “Jesus Christ” and other religious names couldn’t be mentioned.

Irvine has led council meetings with an invocation off and on for 11 of its 41 years, from its inception, 1971-1979, and again from 1997-2000, until Councilman Larry Agran – at the time mayor – traded invocations for a moment of silence and patriotic music, Agran said.

Agran who opposed the policy, as did Councilwoman Beth Krom, read the First Amendment aloud at the meeting and called the restrictions troubling because they would proscribe what a religious leader could or couldn’t say.

Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Tustin and others have invocations. Fullerton’s council and Orange County’s supervisors take turns delivering a prayer.

Lake Forest’s mayor wants to discuss adding invocations. It would be a first in the city’s 21-year history.

The Orange County Fire Authority has had them since its inception in 1995.

Senior Chaplain Warren C. Johnson said they take care to be as sensitive as they can to not offend those gathered, calling it a “sacred responsibility.”

“I would not pray the same way as I would from my pulpit,” he said. Asked if he could deliver a religious message at an Irvine meeting within the city’s legal parameters, he said he could without losing the message’s sacred integrity.

“I just would be delighted that they would allow clergy to address the City Council and those in attendance and bring forth prayer,” he said.